Adventures in the land of Otilee

The number of the Feast!

Written by Otilee on September 5, 2010 – 1:57 pm -

REVAMP – REUSE – RECYCLE! This was the theme for the second Feast Your Eyes exhibition Brendan and I were asked to contribute to. Deciding once again to collaborate instead of exhibiting individually we set out to find otherwise unusable / undesirable (i.e. shit!) opshop finds and redesign / repurpose / hack up and frankenstein them into something else. The ’something else’ being a feature garment and 5 plushies.

The first Op-shopping expedition produced a bunch of random shit including tablecloths and bedsheets we intended to use for fabric to make some plushies along with a brown / gunmetal grey tarten kilt, then the second trip unearthing and truly hideous orange skirt suit which would end up being the basis for the main garment.

THE ORIGINAL HIDEOUS SKIRT SUIT

I forgot to take a ‘before’ picture of the tarten kilt… but its a kilt I’m sure you can picture it!

SKETCH FOR THE RE-DESIGN + PARTIALLY TRANSFORMED

The original idea was to put the bustle on the back of skirt (above left) – but after finding out the zip was at the back I scrapped the idea because I suck big ones at sewing zips and didn’t have a lot of time to put this thing together so it instead became and interpretive ‘bustle’ as a coattail feature on the back of the jacket.

Its a bit hard to see on the design sketch but we’ve got two faces over the boobies with long tongues coming out of each to tie the front of the jacket together. Brendan’s male / female faces below as initial shapes and after painting.

FACES!

The mannequin we used to display the garment for the exhibition was significantly smaller then the dressmakers mannequin I was using to make it so it didn’t really look the way we had hoped on the night – not enough happening in the boob compartment to fill it out! Garment is size 8-10 – my kneeling mannequin must be a 4 or something equally as terrifying but it was a bit of fun so we weren’t too precious about this one.

THE FINAL PIECES – FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE

Yes, I know the face on Brendans slug looks suspect… he’s a strange boy.

Thanks for everyone that made it down to the exhibition opening last night and to Sarah and Sophie for putting it on and asking us to be a part of it. Well done girls – it was an awesome turn out and you both did a fabulous job with pulling it all together! Everyone’s work was awesome!

Plushies and garment are available for purchase – if interested hit me up with an email.

Tags: art, beard, Brendan Ninness, exhibition, fashion, Feast Your Eyes, Fremantle, illustration, otilee
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Bloom’in Winter

Written by Otilee on July 24, 2010 – 2:34 am -

Oh, Mr Galliano. Firstly, Love. Love, love. Love, love, love.

In these here odd times we find ourselves in – what, with snap frozen fruit and vegetables of varying varieties available to us (albeit at varying prices) pretty much all year round… gone are the days of ’seasonal’ menus. We can pretty much have what we want, when we want. No need to wait until next spring to devour your next delicious strawberry for example – you can get one now! Yes, it is frozen in a bag with bits of ice encrusted onto it (it is also probably mooshed into the neighboring raspberry too), BUT! you can still get one…

Seasonal schmeasonal… and the lines are getting increasingly blurred, even with fashion. I’ve had the misfortune of witnessing slinky summer dresses worn (generally without coats) in the dead of winter (admittedly, this was in North Yorkshire so perhaps we can strike that example from the record), and in general, it seems a non-traditional winter palette creeping into Winter collections. Global warming? The dawning of the age of Aquarius? (those damn hippies and their astrological predictions of shifts in global consciousness!) What ever is going on, you can bet that of all the members included in the ‘Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture’ - Dior is going to bust out with it first.

Enter Couture Fall / Winter 2010/11 stage…. erm, right. And continue down that runway in front of a wall that looks suspiciously like the walls in one of those wholesale florists cold rooms with a spectacular giant tangerine floral sculptural piece in front of it. This collection is nothing short of petals on parade and its blooming spectacular!!

What we’ve got is Winter fabrics, fashioned with all the fabulous flavor of spring. Makeup is a mix of tangerine, electric blue and teal swishes and blocks of eye shadow pared with a bold deep aubergine lip. Hair is styled in what reminds me of sleek ceramic vases as well as cellophane cone wraps in what can only be described as an upside down model flower arrangement. A perfect conceptual compliment to an upside down seasonal collection. Bravo Dior, bravo.

I hate to have to draw these parallels also but I’ve also got a sneaking suspicion that we should perhaps be asking Mr. Galliano the question: “Just what species or, shall we say, genus *cough* genius are you? Lets face it – even those of us that didn’t rush out and see Burton’s version earlier this year, I’ll bet you pretty much everyone revisited the 50’s Disney animation.

Since there doesn’t appear to be many runway images available on the net from the Paris show at the beginning of this month – I’ve screen shot all the below images from a video I found on you tube of the show… quality images will no doubt surface in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I’ve got shit quality images to compare with some lovely pictures of flowers I grabbed off a google image search (if any of these flower images are yours please contact me and I’ll credit appropriately) but, you get the idea….

Lets take a look at a couple and compare, shall we!

*rubs hands together, excitedly*

MARIGOLD

LILAC

CHRYSANTHEMUM

IRIS

TULIP

“Just look at those stems!” …. “I think she’s pretty”

Oh and p.s. I anticipate Tangerine and Aubergine to be massive for Winter 11… even if only as an accent colour along with black.

p.p.s. did I mention I love Galliano?

Tags: Christian Dior, Dior, Fall Winter 2010/2011, fashion, Flowers, Friday Fashion Forecasting, Galliano, Haute Couture, Trend forecasting
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Razza-ma-tassel!

Written by Otilee on November 26, 2009 – 7:32 pm -

Flicking through the December issue of Australian Vogue I came across a fashion editorial ‘The frill of it all’ – a great fashion story with Louis XVI style shoes, ornate brocade fabrics and… curtain tie back tassels.

One of the first (proper) shoots I shot (with film) and styled back in Feb 2007 was pretty much this look right down to the freakin curtain tassel (its even the same colour / style) – plus similar brocade. I really love it when this happens! Now there is probably no way the stylist saw my shitty pic from 3 years ago so I’m in no way in the slightest insinuating that my tassel idea was pinched – it simply warms the cockles of my cockles (mmm cockles) that my crazy ideas that back then coped me so much flack are now gracing the pages of Vogue and that this blog is allowing me to say “take that naysayers!! ahhahahahahhahaaaaaa *insert fabulous Phyllis Diller Laugh* ”

LEFT Artisanal Elegance 2007 | RIGHT Vogue Australia December 2009 p216

Tags: Brocade, fashion, magazine, styling, Vogue
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mmmm… fascinating

Written by Otilee on November 18, 2009 – 3:47 pm -

A headpiece / fascinator I made for a shoot ended up with a feature in a local magazine this month. Woohooo tearsheet! Its the blue / black feather one at the top of the page.

Shoot I’d initially designed it for was the ‘Nameless here for evermore’ series shot back in December 2008 featuring skirt / corset design by the awesomely talented Laura Geddes, modeled (and with makeup) by Countess Grotesque.

Location took me heaps of internet research and three 1.5 hour car rides to find – but it was well worth it . If anyone is interested in trying finding it, I’m fairly sure its completely knocked down now as there were bulldozers there while we were shooting. Such a shame!